PAPER CHASE: Christmas Carol returns home

HAL from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey (CNS PR)

After 170 years, a signed copy of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is returning to the North Yorkshire town of Malton, where locals say the author found the inspiration for Scrooge's counting house.

Dickens gave a signed copy of his Christmas classic to the widow of an old friend, whose office he visited shortly before writing the book.

Malton resident Selina Scott writes in The Telegraph that the community bought the signed copy in New York for $35,000 and will put it on display and donate it to the University of York. When the book arrived in the town it was greeted with a bowl of Smoking Bishop, a punch made with warm red wine, port, oranges and cloves.

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Winnipeg's Great Plains Publications has a new managing editor.

Mel Marginet, originally from Bruxelles, comes to the publishing company from the YM-YWCA, where she was co-ordinator of communications, special events and fund development and co-ordinator of the annual Women of Distinction Awards. The U of W theatre and film honours graduate is also co-founder and artistic head of Theatre by the River.

She will manage production of Great Plains titles, ensuring budgets and timelines are met.

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A new novel by Governor General's Award-winning author David Gilmour (A Perfect Night to Go to China) will be the first release from the new HarperCollins imprint Patrick Crean Editions in fall 2013.

Gilmour's new novel, Extraordinary, is described in industry publication Quill & Quire as a story of a brother and sister's reminiscences as they prepare for her assisted suicide.

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Somewhere, an ape is throwing a Kindle in the air in celebration.

The works of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and dozens of other science fiction novels and story collections, will soon be available as e-books in the American market.

The late author's estate has an agreement with digital publisher RosettaBooks to publish 35 of Clarke's books electronically. Clarke's other books include Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama and The Sands of Mars. The author, who died in 2005 at age 90, was also a science theorist whose ideas helped to bring about modern communications satellites.

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In an effort to address the gender gap in Canadian book reviewing, the advocacy group Canadian Women in the Literary Arts has named its first "critic in residence" -- Montreal poet Sue Sinclair.

Sinclair, originally from St. John's, is the author of four books of poetry, including Breaker (Brick Books) and The Drunken Lovely Bird (Goose Lane).

The creation of the paid position follows a study CWILA conducted of reviews published in 12 Canadian literary magazines, plus the Toronto newspapers The Globe and Mail and National Post, in which books by women accounted for 23 to 64 per cent of reviews in each publication.

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